About the trolls

Published July 12th, 2011 by Bobby Henderson

There’s something of a troll problem in the comment discussions. I think the BigGest offender has now finally been convinced to find another venue, but there will be more in the future who are bent on being disruptive.

Short of moderating all comments before they’re published (meaning it may be hours before they become visible), the options are a bit limited in what we can do. We have a few options but some trolls are persistent at getting around the obstacles.

One thing I wanted to make clear is that there is no opinion filter. The whole spectrum of opinion is welcome here – and especially when commenters are representing a minority view (strongly religious, for example) I feel obligated to give them the benefit of the doubt. What I am saying is, unpopular opinions are as welcome as popular opinions, but all comments must be somewhat civil. Commenters who are only disruptive will be asked to find a new venue. This last trouble-maker was ejected because he was trying to ruin the peace (and succeeding), not because he was religious. Many people asking for his removal were in fact Christians who felt he was giving Christians a bad name with his ranting.

The question is what to do with the comments left behind. It was argued that we should leave them in place to avoid any precedent of deleting comments. This makes sense to me.

For those looking for a more structured discussion forum, the FSM Forums are available and run a much tighter ship.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions about the troll and for your patience.

201 Responses to “About the trolls”

since the article above talks about disruptive comments, and since i wanted to say something negative about atheists (btw, i used to belong to american atheists, but got tired of the tenor of the discussions and the constant request for funding) i thought i’d post my comment here. came here on a lark because of the funny article about the guy in Austria getting a license with a spaghetti strainer on his head – great sense of humor, that – and saw a link to an article about that idiot rachel maddow. just wanted to say that the woman is a dimwit and anybody who agrees with her is not playing with a full deck, either. the friggin present administration is DESTROYING this country, and that goes for 90% of the democrats. i’d rather vote for a religious-nut republican than a democrat, at this point, and i am very strongly opposed to organized religion. but as bad as religion and religious people can be, they are not turning this country into the next Rome. obama is. at this point, the dems are to be feared MUC MORE than any religion (with the possible exception of islam). just thought i’d throw that out.

Rachel Maddow has an undergraduate degree from Stanford and a doctorate from Oxford. She may be a dimwit (I agree with her, but I’m not playing with a full deck, evidently), but she has a lotta nominally smart people fooled. This thread is about trolls, and – as Bobby remarked at the top – all opinions are welcome, if expressed with civility. Just thought I’d throw that out.

i was civil. aren’t you allowed to call someone a dimwit or an idiot here? you’re awully sensitive, if not. i have graduate degrees as well, in physics. so what. i know plenty of people with graduate degrees that i wouldn’t trust walking my dog around the block. doesn’t magically make you a genius. in my experience, many people with garduate degrees spent too much time in school, and too little time observing the world. what’s a “nominally smart people”?

Another clueless idiot coming here not knowing what we are about…
Look buddy, this a not a political website. Regulars here may fit anywhere on the political spectrum. Take your diatribes elsehwhere, OK? There are plenty of places on the web this kind of ranting goes down well. Just not here.
RAmen

Here’s a thing Mike. As an Aussie, I’m on the outside looking in when it comes to the US and its’ recent issues. Know what it looks like to me? Some very greedy Tea Party idiots willing to send your country into default because they are too greedy to pay a bit more tax. I see a president trying to introduce a health system that allows all Americans access to health services without having to put their lives into mortgage.

Go right ahead, vote for religious nut politicians. But know this and understand it, Mike. Your country won’t be very popular in the eyes of its’ allies and trading partners if we have to take another financial hit just because morons like your greedy Republicans won’t part with an extra 2% in tax.

Well said, as A Canadian looking down at our neighbors, I’m becoming increasingly concerned how their Politics might interfere with my country, our stock markets are too closely entangled for me to be certain that them defaulting on Augest 2nd won’t have a very bad effect on our economy.

Yeah, it seems like they are attacking all comments. Everytime I think my opinion of religious people can’t get any lower, they seem to find a way to lower it. When someone says anything even remotely which criticizes or calls into question any parts of their religion, they act as if it were an all-out attack on them. When they do it, the self-righteous bigots feel they are doing the “work” of the Invisible Sky Daddy and come on here and mess with our site, which actually is mild compared to some of the things these thugs do. I know a lot of folks on here want to play nice and engage in diologue. NOT ME! I know some Pastafarians may disagree with my point of view, but IMHO, they are nothing but smug, hate-filled, self-righteous goons who are borderline violent. They feel they need to use hate, intimidation and sometimes violence to prove how “loving” their Imaginary Friend(s) is/are.

Oh, and I have a 20-spot which says the troll “big guy” is at the very least partly responsible for the latest trolling on our site.

My Pastafarian brethren and sistren, please forgive the profanity in the following reply.

I don’t believe for a second that this sudden rash of down-clicks throughout the threads isn’t related to our previous troll problem. Whether or not this jackass calling himself ‘TheDevil’ is in fact eiggiB is immaterial. He’s just another pathetic fucking coward and loser in desperate need of a life. You don’t like what we have to say? Fine. Discuss it with us or leave. You can’t hang with our level of rational discourse? Fine. Take your punk-ass back to school and study science and philosophy until you can. Maybe you can pick up a couple of IQ points along the way. I’ve said it before: if we acted like these fuck-wads in any other religious gathering place, we’d be arrested. I guarantee you not one of these ass-clown trolls would have the balls to confront us to our faces.

When you bitches come into our house, you’d better show us some gods-damned respect. FSM knows where you live and he’s got bigger balls than you dip-shits.

Wow. Just in the time it took me to write my rant, all the posts by the one calling himself “TheDevil” disappeared. Great job to the people monitoring this site. If only we could get rid of the bogus clicks so easily.

It’s probably a group of “people”, either religious cranks or trolls, who just sit at their computer all day logging in and out of the site just so that they can click the dislike button. Perhaps they are members of the little girl fan club.

What you fail to understand is that this is, for want of a better word, our ‘church’. Unlike most religious organisations, we openly encourage discussion from non-believers and outsiders. However, as wulff so aptly said, S H O W S O M E R E S P E C T. We don’t go to your church to piss off Christians, so don’t come here expecting us to listen to your reactionary nonsense.
RAmen.

Drained and Washed Cleansays:

July 20, 2011 at 4:38 PM

ask nicely with no cursing, please, friend. **Says the person who says fuck every other sentence in the first post**

all I want is some common courtesy…is that too much to ask in this crazy world we all live in!?? **Says the person who is disrespectful of the people here**

I mean…I give and give and do and do and this is the thanks I get? **For being a jackass? Yes**

we’re all stuck here on this blue planet for a while and the least we can do is to…shit…I couldn’t finish that with a straight face! **Of course not because intolerance is a necessity to believing in a god, and you just prove it**

reapsays:

August 5, 2011 at 12:10 AM

maybe we would be happier with pasta in out tummy’s. come brothers sit and and be peaceful with the devil…. don’t feed the troll acknowledge him silently

Skysays:

July 16, 2011 at 4:45 PM

The situation was taken care of last night. please do not feed the fire.

No, that’s not how it works at all. The ‘dumbasses in the peanut gallery’ are big kids now and can look after themselves. But anyone who trolls and spams will be removed. Before you pass judgment on the tolerance of the peanut gallery, try a common sense debate with the dumbasses.

Tolerance? As in putting up with something that you do not like for as long as possible? Christians show no tolerance at all for people who do not share their superstitions. They are intolerant and abrasive with all sorts of threats. So I have gotten well past tolerance, now I just laugh at you.